What Divestment Misses
Calls for university endowments to divest from fossil fuels are constant on American college campuses, but are they wise? Divestment is too blunt an instrument for complicated questions. The inconvenient truth is that affordable energy and petrochemicals are the foundation of countless everyday consumer items that improve the quality of life for people across the world. The oil and gas companies that student activists want to punish are the same ones that have powered social and economic progress.
Even more inconvenient, oil and gas companies are among the largest investors in renewable energy and technology. Companies such as Shell, Exxon Mobil and Chevron are all key sponsors of the MIT Energy Initiative. It’s not obvious that shaming these companies will help advance green energy. Nor will it secure “climate justice,” the social-justice-infused environmentalism that typically dominates campus divestment campaigns. Getting rid of oil and gas would disproportionately hurt the poor and working class.
Educational institutions should debate, discuss and forge solutions to complex problems. With the benefit of multiple perspectives from different disciplines, as well as the intellectual authority and prestige of academic professionalism, universities can make a difference through ideas and research, not partisan endowment politics.
— Shantanu Jakhete, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, mechanical engineering
